2008/08/23 by Cheol-Hwan Park, Young-Woo Son, Young‐Woo Son +3 · 5 citations
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Charge carrier #Collimated light #Condensed matter physics #Electron #Graphene #Graphene research and applications #Materials science #Nanotechnology #Optics #Photon #Physics #Plasmonic and Surface Plasmon Research #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Quantum mechanics #Superlattice #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.1021/nl801752r
published as Nano Lett. 8, 2920-2924 (2008). · 7 pages, 4 figures (including supporting online material), published online in Nano Letters
arxiv created 2008/08/23 · openalex publication_date 2008/08/23 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Although electrons and photons are intrinsically different, importing useful concepts in optics to electronics performing similar functions has been actively pursued over the last two decades. In particular, collimation of an electron beam is a long-standing goal. We show that ballistic propagation of an electron beam with virtual no spatial spreading or diffraction, without a waveguide or external magnetic field, can be achieved in graphene under an appropriate class of experimentally feasible one-dimensional external periodic potentials. The novel chiral quasi-one-dimensional metallic state that the charge carriers are in originates from a collapse of the intrinsic helical nature of the charge carriers in graphene owing to the superlattice potential. Beyond providing a new way to constructing chiral one-dimensional states in two dimensions, our findings should be useful in graphene-based electronic devices (e.g., for information processing) utilizing some of the highly developed concepts in optics.